Memoirs In Verse

Listen to: Let me buy you a beer... Let me buy you a beer and I'll tell you about it, Oh, I could have happily poisoned the blasted Chief Engineer, and although I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t, it's possible I did, and I didn’t really care. In the tortuous heat of the Yemeni summer, I was glad to leave the sun-baked deck where the ship’s searing hot steelwork burned my skin at the slightest touch. I headed to the ‘tween decks and the musty stink of the lower hold to check that the cargo for Aden, from London and Bremen, was all put ashore. I climbed past the patty piles of steaming human shit, dumped at the manholes by the stevedores to stop us climbing down, so they could filch the cargo without being seen, and I gagged at the flies and maggots, swarming so close to my face. I watched the last few crates of cargo swayed aloft in nets from the deep lower hold to the dodgy-looking barges moored alongside, when I found three plastic bags, full of drugs, stashed in the shadows o

This free verse poem remembers the occasion when, as an eighteen year old apprentice, my mother drove me to join 'Strathnairn', my fourth ship, in London's Royal Albert dock. Listen to: Farewell To My Mother I sat nervous and wary of the unknown as she drove me to London and the docks. I was still young, a youth, and immature enough to suffer a boy’s irrational dread of being seen in public with his mother. And I was ashamed of her ancient car, and felt that we trespassed as we clattered through the City, along those famous streets, past grand weathered buildings, still soot-blackened by years of coal fires, industry—and war. At the dock gates the IRA's bombs had failed to stir the police into vigilance. They stayed dry out of the summer drizzle, waving us through with barely a glance to where, like her car, everything was worn-out. The once-thriving dock seemed abandoned then, but for two or three ships idle alongside. The warehouses were silent and empty, or ruined,

This free verse poem is my fourth and final poem in the ‘Kildare’ series. The poem comes with a trigger warning for those who may be offended by some of the harsh realities of life. Listen to: A Run Ashore The smell of stale sweat and tropical damp pervaded the stairs and the grubby room, where we sat with our backs to the wall, dripping in a humid thirty degrees, with knees pressed hard against the bed, which entirely filled the dim-lit room. Mama-san appeared with two naked women, and opened us a bottle of Tiger beer each. They introduced themselves politely; I didn’t catch their bar-names or care, for they resembled Laurel and Hardy, Ollie, tall and plump; Stan, thin as a robber’s dog. The simple thought of a naked woman is often enough to prick the arousal of a roaming adolescent seaman. Yet Ollie and Stan inspired nothing in me, and I found my interest drained as complete as the beer in my bottle. I admit they presented a curious sight, for when Ollie produced a cucumber, mounte

This poem, written in contemporary free verse, is the second in the 'Kildare' series. Listen to: When Mother Read The News Armed with a mug of instant coffee and a fag, my mother opened the Daily Telegraph , and read for a while, before her eyes fell on the brief article: ‘The British bulk carrier, “Kildare”, 153,000 tonnes dwt,  is reported missing in the Indian Ocean,  and the ship’s owners have provided no further details.’ She scanned the pages, sucking hard on her fag, drawing smoke deep into her lungs, urgently seeking a clue searching for news of her son, reaching for her mug, for something to do. The telephone rang, she flew to the phone; it was him, the nice man from the office. His courteous, soothing voice assured her we were all safe (we weren’t), though not yet in port. The nice man oozed with confidence; all would be well, (it was the ‘70s after all). She grumbled she’d seen the article before the courtesy of a telephone call, but she was pragmatic, and if I was ‘

This is the first poem in the 'Kildare' series. Listen to: Joining 'Kildare' The dawn led day still deeper into winter, as biting northerly winds drove rain hard across the port in chill, translucent shrouds, that veiled the dormant hulks beside the piers, laden with cheerless cargoes of iron ore. Crane grabs dipped within their open holds to pluck the piles of red metallic ore. Like hungry, raucous crows, they seemed to feed, preying on some drawn and rotting carcass, leaving nought but steel and ribs exposed. My new world of conveyors, cranes, and ships was painted dull, in red-black monochrome, with a sodden slurry of fines of ore, that fouled my skin, the ground, and rusting steel, its tireless industry jarred my senses. I shrank, shivering from cold and nerves, deeper in my coat as grime-covered men lowered the gangway to the muddy pier. I climbed on deck, unknowing and unknown, to join ‘Kildare’, bound for God-knows-where.

Listen to: The Seething City The seething city's grimy warren of cages, is journey's end for women and children trafficked to the trade for sex, day and night. To be hawked and sold beneath slavers' eyes, and passed from foul, corrupted hand to hand, to suffer their bodies’ auction in silence. I witnessed the truth of that silence. When through the barred and curtained gates of cages, reached the gaudy, perfumed and grasping hands of women, of girls and boys—of children, beckoning, cajoling me with pleading eyes, to rent and use them as I chose that night. Without custom, they’d not earn that night, but suffer behind their veil of silence. Fear betrayed their gayly painted eyes, for if they displeased the madam of the cages, she would break the spirit of those children held firm in bondage by her cruel hands. Their lives but a travesty in her hands, torn from their innocence by day and night. Who will protect those women, those children, while law and politicians stand in s